Daily flossing is an integral part of a complete oral hygiene program. Brushing one's teeth without flossing leaves a large portion of the tooth surfaces uncleaned. Flossing helps to remove harmful plaque and bacteria from between teeth, where a toothbrush can't reach. It is well known that plaque build-up can lead to gum disease, chronic bad breath, tooth loss and other ailments. Even with these risks, most adults do not floss on a regular basis.
This is largely because traditional flossing methods are awkward, difficult and painful to many people, causing them to skip the important step of flossing. Apart from mere laziness, there are other reasons people don't floss. These include spatial interference (when one's hands are too large to properly manipulate floss within one's mouth, or when an adult, for example, is attempting to floss a child's teeth), loss of circulation (floss wrapped tightly around a fingertip cuts off circulation to the tip of the finger, a painful and unpleasant situation), disability (arthritis or any other disability affecting manual dexterity can limit or prevent the proper manipulation of floss), and the general unhygienic nature of the process (hands are in contact with used floss, and must be placed repeatedly deep within the mouth). Flossing is also simply generally inconvenient, requiring concentration, the use of two hands at all times, and time to prepare a new section of floss for each tooth.
To ease the inconvenience of flossing, a large variety of flossing devices have been suggested, among them those disclosed in the following U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,734,107, 5,038,806, 5,819,769 5,823,207, 6,161,556, and also in U.S. patent application No. US2002/0170570.
All of these prior art dental floss systems have disadvantages that keep them from being commonly used. Some are very complicated in structure and expensive to produce. Some do not permit the easy substitution of new floss for used floss. Some require two hands to operate. There remains, accordingly, a need for a relatively simple dental floss dispensing device that is easily operated with one hand.